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# Chapter 669: Journey to Egypt
“Duel Monsters is everything in my life.”
“Duel Monsters is the value of my existence.”
“Therefore, I show the greatest respect to my Duel Monsters opponents. When I lose a Duel Monsters game, I will wear denim overalls and wait to grow old as a bargaining chip for punishment.”
“Well, that was certainly how I thought when I was young.”
Holding a photo album in his hand, Solomon Muto, sitting behind the counter, said with a slight hint of embarrassment, pulling at the denim overalls he was wearing. “Well, you’ve already seen the result.”
“Even if you say that, Master Solomon,” Joey Wheeler said, holding a photo in his hand with an expression of disbelief. “How could we possibly believe that the uncle in this photo, with such a tough-guy aura, is actually you, Master Solomon!”
In the photo in Joey Wheeler’s hand, a handsome uncle wearing a black suit and a gentleman's hat, looking as if he were going to propose, stood beside a camel. Facing the camera, he made a cool handgun gesture, as if saying something heartwarming like “Hit your Heart.”
And that uncle’s iconic starfish hairstyle, along with the photography time printed in the corner of the photo, which was 1960, confirmed that the handsome uncle in the photo was none other than Solomon Muto himself, standing before Joey Wheeler at that moment!
“It’s not just that, what’s with that height?”
Honda also leaned in beside Joey Wheeler, looking down at the handsome uncle’s height in the photo, which allowed him to easily flip onto a camel, then looking up at Solomon Muto, who was only visible from the chest up even while standing behind the counter. “Although it’s true that people get shorter when they get old due to muscle atrophy and bone aging, Grandpa Solomon, the extent to which you’ve gotten shorter is like you've become a completely different person!”
“Huh~ It’s not that bad, is it?” Solomon Muto scratched his head. Seeing that both Joey Wheeler and Tristan had an attitude of not believing the photo was real, he spread his hands helplessly. “But back in that era, there was fundamentally no fake technology like Photoshop! This photo is indeed real, and the person in it is indeed me.”
Since Grandpa Solomon said so, even though it was hard to believe that “Grandpa Solomon Muto, who looks like a completely worn-out old man, was actually a super charismatic, long-legged handsome guy when he was young,” everyone could only accept this undeniable fact.
“I was even thinking if Yugi’s current height had reached its limit, since Grandpa Solomon, being so old, is only this tall. Turns out Grandpa Solomon was actually so much taller when he was young!” Téa said, glancing at Yugi, who was smiling shyly beside her. “Congratulations, Yugi, you still have the potential to keep growing taller in the future.”
“Actually, I don’t think I’m that short right now. And besides, I’ve clearly grown a full centimeter since Duelist Kingdom!” Although Yugi was a bit happy knowing he still had a lot of potential to grow taller in the future after seeing his grandpa’s photo from when he was young, he sincerely felt that he wasn’t short at all right now, he argued.
However, Hayato, sitting beside him, was dueling with a customer across the counter. While doing so, he casually delivered a fatal blow to Yugi: “But Yugi, isn’t your current height the same as Rebecca, who’s six years younger than you? Attack points 16000 【Cyber End Dragon】 with a Piercing Damage Effect. Yosh, I won.”
“Ah, he’s crying.”
The overconfident elementary school student duelist, having been crushed by Hayato in one turn, ran out of Kame Game Shop crying, holding his deck. Hayato, however, felt no guilt whatsoever about bullying an elementary school student. Instead, he happily collected the 500 DP from the system settlement and conveniently sent the 【Morinphen】 card dropped by defeating the elementary school student to the shop for decomposition.
Glancing at Yugi, who had fallen into a slump and was muttering to himself things like “Rebecca just developed too early” because of his casual remark, Hayato turned to Grandpa Solomon and said, “Grandpa Solomon, did you specifically take out photos from over forty years ago just to tell us you were very handsome back then too?”
“No, I wasn’t trying to show off how handsome, charismatic, and super popular I was when I was young. Hmm, maybe just that little bit.” Solomon Muto said, extending two fingers to make a gesture that would make him lose his Korean customers.
Immediately after, Solomon Muto coughed and cleared his throat, putting on a serious expression and saying earnestly, “Yugi, aren’t you guys about to set off on a trip?”
Seeing that Grandpa Solomon had brought up serious matters, Yugi also recovered from his dejection and nodded seriously. “Because of the global ocean current fluctuation caused by Dartz earlier, the Industrial Illusions team accidentally salvaged a shipwreck from a thousand years ago. After research by the archaeological team, they discovered it was a ship from an ancient kingdom that seemed to believe in the power of gemstones.”
“That kingdom seemed to believe that unlike other minerals, naturally formed gemstones harbored great power, so they regarded seven gemstones as national treasures, and those gemstones happened to be on that ship.” Yugi paused, then showed a subtle smile. “However, from the fact that the shipwreck sank to the seabed, we can infer that the final fate of that kingdom after losing the seven gemstones was extinction.”
“But that’s not important. After Pegasus learned the story of this kingdom, he said he had a lot of creative inspiration and wanted to design a completely new Duel Monsters series based on the seven gemstones he obtained. However, although he had initial inspiration, he didn’t have the ability to realize it, so he was thinking of going to Egypt to see if he could find the inspiration to complete it.”
As he spoke, Yugi also took out several sheets of paper from a backpack placed beside him. They depicted various kinds of monsters: some were warriors with gemstones embedded in their armor, others were Four Sacred Beasts like Azure Dragon, White Tiger, Vermillion Bird, and Black Tortoise with crystal structures on their bodies. However, without exception, all of these were unapproved drafts, sent by Pegasus to Yugi and Hayato.
Designing Duel Monsters cards isn’t something that can be completed simply by finishing the image design; the cards must also resonate and receive the spirit’s recognition to be completed. Although Pegasus’s design drafts had a high degree of completion, the lack of spirit resonance indicated that Pegasus’s design wasn’t the design that best fit those gemstones.
This wasn’t the first time Pegasus had encountered something like this. In the past years, he often encountered this kind of situation where he had the inspiration to design cards but lacked the means to complete them.
Unfortunately, inspiration isn’t something you can force. Pegasus racked his brain for a long time but still couldn’t come up with a solution, so in the end, he could only helplessly choose to give up. He decided to set off on a trip to relax his mood, hoping that perhaps during the process of traveling, he could find the inspiration to complete the design of this card series.
However, there was another aspect to Pegasus’s decision to set off on a trip. Ever since experiencing his soul being sealed and cast into the endless darkness within the Orichalcos God during the Doma Incident, and then being revived, Pegasus discovered that the lingering power of the Millennium Eye that resided within him had disappeared.
Normally, Pegasus might have understood that the lingering power in his left eye had been consumed after such a long time. But the problem was, before that power completely disappeared, Pegasus saw a phantom vision using the sight of his left eye that he didn’t possess. In front of the tablet, he saw figures that seemed to be Yugi, Kaiba, and Hayato.
The reason he wasn’t certain was that Pegasus could only vaguely see that the three people’s faces were indeed almost identical to the appearance of the three people in his memory, but their height, skin color, and even clothing and style were all different.
Pegasus didn’t know whether he should believe that “phantom vision,” but he at least knew one thing: he had seen the tablet from that "phantom vision" before. It was the very tablet he had accidentally found in Egypt years ago while traveling the world to find a way to revive his lover. It was also at that time that Pegasus obtained the Millennium Eye.
Anyway, it didn’t matter where he went first on his world trip. Pegasus decided to go to Egypt first. Perhaps revisiting the place would allow him to gain inspiration by feeling the changes the years had brought to the scenery. He could also take the opportunity to try and find that tablet again and see what his vision was all about.
At the same time, Pegasus also extended an invitation to the three people who appeared in his vision, inviting them to go to Egypt with him to help figure out what was really going on. Then, naturally, Pegasus’s invitation to Kaiba was ruthlessly rejected.
“If you dare to waste my precious time again with talk of ‘vision,’ ‘prevision,’ and other superstitious nonsense, just wait for my Blue-Eyes to bring down judgment upon you!”
Anyway, that was roughly the meaning. Kaiba seemed to have threatened Pegasus like that at the time. When talking to Hayato, Pegasus’s tone was quite helpless, as if he couldn’t understand how Kaiba maintained his “superstition” towards science after experiencing so many things.
As for Hayato and Yugi, they accepted Pegasus’s invitation and decided to travel abroad to Egypt.
It must be said, the time Pegasus chose was perfectly appropriate, because coincidentally, Domino High School was currently on holiday. Yes, you heard right, although they are Legendary Duelists who can save the world by dueling, Hayato and the others still remembered they were students. How touching.
Alright, to be honest, there’s actually nothing to be surprised about. Actually, the time points when major events happened before were basically all during holidays. It just so happened that Yugi and the others didn’t have to go to school, so it seemed like they didn’t even need to attend school once they started dueling.
Actually, just yesterday, Joey Wheeler was still at school. Because he talked in his sleep during class and shouted, “How can I lose with Red-Eyes Black Dragon riding my face?”, he was called up by the teacher and made to stand as punishment for one class period.
In short, unlike a certain Dragon-Obsessed President who dropped out of junior high and went home to inherit the family business, Hayato and the others, being good students, also decided to set off for Egypt during winter break to accompany Pegasus on his trip. And it wasn’t just Hayato and Yugi; Joey Wheeler, Tristan, and Téa would also accompany them.
On one aspect, they happened to have enough time for fun during the holiday, and this time Pegasus took the position of Big Spender, covering all expenses for everyone. After all, for Pegasus, money was truly just a mere number now. His biggest pursuit in his life from now on was simply to make Duel Monsters develop better and better, and to be able to design more interesting cards.
And on the other aspect, perhaps because he had witnessed the souls of the Atlanteans from ten thousand years ago return to their homeland, and the ten thousand year old scenery reappear within the ruin of Atlantis City, Dark Yugi made up his mind to set off to search for his lost memory.
For this, Dark Yugi specifically borrowed the Three Egyptian Gods cards from Hayato’s hand, and went to the Egyptian Artifact Traveling Exhibition Hall to find the tablet that recorded himself from three thousand years ago and the person who looked similar to Kaiba. He used the power of the Three Egyptian Gods.
Before this, Joey Wheeler and the others thought that once Dark Yugi showed the cards, he might have to separate from everyone. Because of this, they said their solemn goodbyes for a long time. Even the two strong boys, Tristan and Joey Wheeler, had teary eyes, not to mention how sad the emotional Téa was at that time.
However, after raising the Three Egyptian Gods cards towards the tablet, what appeared before Dark Yugi’s eyes was not his own memory. Instead, it was a phantom of a tablet. That tablet seemed like it was placed within a palace somewhere, and a human figure was drawn on it, but there were many blanks all over its body.
What Dark Yugi particularly cared about was that the blanks on that tablet, their shapes seemed to coincide coincidentally with several Millennium Items he knew of.
For example, the ring-shaped blank on the human figure’s head could fit the Millennium Necklace, the blank on the forehead could fit the Millennium Eye, the blank on the right hand was the appearance of the Millennium Scepter/Staff, the abdomen was the shape of the Millennium Wheel of Wisdom, and there was a triangular blank at the heart’s position, which seemed like it was prepared for the Millennium Puzzle.
Aside from the Millennium Items corresponding to the two other “scale”-like blanks and one “Ankh” symbol-like blank, which Dark Yugi had no impression of, most of the blanks on the tablet Dark Yugi could find the corresponding Millennium Items from his memory and fill them in.
Although he didn’t know what would happen if he filled in that tablet, since the tablet that recorded the Memory World had given him this guidance, Dark Yugi felt that perhaps he needed to find that tablet and fill in the seven Millennium Items to retrieve his memory.
And coincidentally, Pegasus said he had seen that tablet before and was also going to Egypt to look for it. Although he hadn’t gathered all the Millennium Items yet, Yugi felt that he could go find that tablet first to complete one goal.
“It’s precisely because you guys are about to set off for Egypt that I wanted to tell you about this matter.” Solomon Muto took a deep breath, looked at everyone, and said seriously, “In Egypt, there’s one thing you absolutely must pay attention to.”
“Whatever you do, don’t just find a tour guide randomly on the roadside! You’ll get ripped off terribly!”
“So after all that, that’s all you wanted to say?!”
Memory World Arc, now proudly serialized!
PS: Revisiting the anime, I realized how incredibly handsome Ji-chan was when he was young. When he first appeared, I almost didn’t recognize him.
(End of Chapter)
“Duel Monsters is everything in my life.”
“Duel Monsters is the value of my existence.”
“Therefore, I show the greatest respect to my Duel Monsters opponents. When I lose a Duel Monsters game, I will wear denim overalls and wait to grow old as a bargaining chip for punishment.”
“Well, that was certainly how I thought when I was young.”
Holding a photo album in his hand, Solomon Muto, sitting behind the counter, said with a slight hint of embarrassment, pulling at the denim overalls he was wearing. “Well, you’ve already seen the result.”
“Even if you say that, Master Solomon,” Joey Wheeler said, holding a photo in his hand with an expression of disbelief. “How could we possibly believe that the uncle in this photo, with such a tough-guy aura, is actually you, Master Solomon!”
In the photo in Joey Wheeler’s hand, a handsome uncle wearing a black suit and a gentleman's hat, looking as if he were going to propose, stood beside a camel. Facing the camera, he made a cool handgun gesture, as if saying something heartwarming like “Hit your Heart.”
And that uncle’s iconic starfish hairstyle, along with the photography time printed in the corner of the photo, which was 1960, confirmed that the handsome uncle in the photo was none other than Solomon Muto himself, standing before Joey Wheeler at that moment!
“It’s not just that, what’s with that height?”
Honda also leaned in beside Joey Wheeler, looking down at the handsome uncle’s height in the photo, which allowed him to easily flip onto a camel, then looking up at Solomon Muto, who was only visible from the chest up even while standing behind the counter. “Although it’s true that people get shorter when they get old due to muscle atrophy and bone aging, Grandpa Solomon, the extent to which you’ve gotten shorter is like you've become a completely different person!”
“Huh~ It’s not that bad, is it?” Solomon Muto scratched his head. Seeing that both Joey Wheeler and Tristan had an attitude of not believing the photo was real, he spread his hands helplessly. “But back in that era, there was fundamentally no fake technology like Photoshop! This photo is indeed real, and the person in it is indeed me.”
Since Grandpa Solomon said so, even though it was hard to believe that “Grandpa Solomon Muto, who looks like a completely worn-out old man, was actually a super charismatic, long-legged handsome guy when he was young,” everyone could only accept this undeniable fact.
“I was even thinking if Yugi’s current height had reached its limit, since Grandpa Solomon, being so old, is only this tall. Turns out Grandpa Solomon was actually so much taller when he was young!” Téa said, glancing at Yugi, who was smiling shyly beside her. “Congratulations, Yugi, you still have the potential to keep growing taller in the future.”
“Actually, I don’t think I’m that short right now. And besides, I’ve clearly grown a full centimeter since Duelist Kingdom!” Although Yugi was a bit happy knowing he still had a lot of potential to grow taller in the future after seeing his grandpa’s photo from when he was young, he sincerely felt that he wasn’t short at all right now, he argued.
However, Hayato, sitting beside him, was dueling with a customer across the counter. While doing so, he casually delivered a fatal blow to Yugi: “But Yugi, isn’t your current height the same as Rebecca, who’s six years younger than you? Attack points 16000 【Cyber End Dragon】 with a Piercing Damage Effect. Yosh, I won.”
“Ah, he’s crying.”
The overconfident elementary school student duelist, having been crushed by Hayato in one turn, ran out of Kame Game Shop crying, holding his deck. Hayato, however, felt no guilt whatsoever about bullying an elementary school student. Instead, he happily collected the 500 DP from the system settlement and conveniently sent the 【Morinphen】 card dropped by defeating the elementary school student to the shop for decomposition.
Glancing at Yugi, who had fallen into a slump and was muttering to himself things like “Rebecca just developed too early” because of his casual remark, Hayato turned to Grandpa Solomon and said, “Grandpa Solomon, did you specifically take out photos from over forty years ago just to tell us you were very handsome back then too?”
“No, I wasn’t trying to show off how handsome, charismatic, and super popular I was when I was young. Hmm, maybe just that little bit.” Solomon Muto said, extending two fingers to make a gesture that would make him lose his Korean customers.
Immediately after, Solomon Muto coughed and cleared his throat, putting on a serious expression and saying earnestly, “Yugi, aren’t you guys about to set off on a trip?”
Seeing that Grandpa Solomon had brought up serious matters, Yugi also recovered from his dejection and nodded seriously. “Because of the global ocean current fluctuation caused by Dartz earlier, the Industrial Illusions team accidentally salvaged a shipwreck from a thousand years ago. After research by the archaeological team, they discovered it was a ship from an ancient kingdom that seemed to believe in the power of gemstones.”
“That kingdom seemed to believe that unlike other minerals, naturally formed gemstones harbored great power, so they regarded seven gemstones as national treasures, and those gemstones happened to be on that ship.” Yugi paused, then showed a subtle smile. “However, from the fact that the shipwreck sank to the seabed, we can infer that the final fate of that kingdom after losing the seven gemstones was extinction.”
“But that’s not important. After Pegasus learned the story of this kingdom, he said he had a lot of creative inspiration and wanted to design a completely new Duel Monsters series based on the seven gemstones he obtained. However, although he had initial inspiration, he didn’t have the ability to realize it, so he was thinking of going to Egypt to see if he could find the inspiration to complete it.”
As he spoke, Yugi also took out several sheets of paper from a backpack placed beside him. They depicted various kinds of monsters: some were warriors with gemstones embedded in their armor, others were Four Sacred Beasts like Azure Dragon, White Tiger, Vermillion Bird, and Black Tortoise with crystal structures on their bodies. However, without exception, all of these were unapproved drafts, sent by Pegasus to Yugi and Hayato.
Designing Duel Monsters cards isn’t something that can be completed simply by finishing the image design; the cards must also resonate and receive the spirit’s recognition to be completed. Although Pegasus’s design drafts had a high degree of completion, the lack of spirit resonance indicated that Pegasus’s design wasn’t the design that best fit those gemstones.
This wasn’t the first time Pegasus had encountered something like this. In the past years, he often encountered this kind of situation where he had the inspiration to design cards but lacked the means to complete them.
Unfortunately, inspiration isn’t something you can force. Pegasus racked his brain for a long time but still couldn’t come up with a solution, so in the end, he could only helplessly choose to give up. He decided to set off on a trip to relax his mood, hoping that perhaps during the process of traveling, he could find the inspiration to complete the design of this card series.
However, there was another aspect to Pegasus’s decision to set off on a trip. Ever since experiencing his soul being sealed and cast into the endless darkness within the Orichalcos God during the Doma Incident, and then being revived, Pegasus discovered that the lingering power of the Millennium Eye that resided within him had disappeared.
Normally, Pegasus might have understood that the lingering power in his left eye had been consumed after such a long time. But the problem was, before that power completely disappeared, Pegasus saw a phantom vision using the sight of his left eye that he didn’t possess. In front of the tablet, he saw figures that seemed to be Yugi, Kaiba, and Hayato.
The reason he wasn’t certain was that Pegasus could only vaguely see that the three people’s faces were indeed almost identical to the appearance of the three people in his memory, but their height, skin color, and even clothing and style were all different.
Pegasus didn’t know whether he should believe that “phantom vision,” but he at least knew one thing: he had seen the tablet from that "phantom vision" before. It was the very tablet he had accidentally found in Egypt years ago while traveling the world to find a way to revive his lover. It was also at that time that Pegasus obtained the Millennium Eye.
Anyway, it didn’t matter where he went first on his world trip. Pegasus decided to go to Egypt first. Perhaps revisiting the place would allow him to gain inspiration by feeling the changes the years had brought to the scenery. He could also take the opportunity to try and find that tablet again and see what his vision was all about.
At the same time, Pegasus also extended an invitation to the three people who appeared in his vision, inviting them to go to Egypt with him to help figure out what was really going on. Then, naturally, Pegasus’s invitation to Kaiba was ruthlessly rejected.
“If you dare to waste my precious time again with talk of ‘vision,’ ‘prevision,’ and other superstitious nonsense, just wait for my Blue-Eyes to bring down judgment upon you!”
Anyway, that was roughly the meaning. Kaiba seemed to have threatened Pegasus like that at the time. When talking to Hayato, Pegasus’s tone was quite helpless, as if he couldn’t understand how Kaiba maintained his “superstition” towards science after experiencing so many things.
As for Hayato and Yugi, they accepted Pegasus’s invitation and decided to travel abroad to Egypt.
It must be said, the time Pegasus chose was perfectly appropriate, because coincidentally, Domino High School was currently on holiday. Yes, you heard right, although they are Legendary Duelists who can save the world by dueling, Hayato and the others still remembered they were students. How touching.
Alright, to be honest, there’s actually nothing to be surprised about. Actually, the time points when major events happened before were basically all during holidays. It just so happened that Yugi and the others didn’t have to go to school, so it seemed like they didn’t even need to attend school once they started dueling.
Actually, just yesterday, Joey Wheeler was still at school. Because he talked in his sleep during class and shouted, “How can I lose with Red-Eyes Black Dragon riding my face?”, he was called up by the teacher and made to stand as punishment for one class period.
In short, unlike a certain Dragon-Obsessed President who dropped out of junior high and went home to inherit the family business, Hayato and the others, being good students, also decided to set off for Egypt during winter break to accompany Pegasus on his trip. And it wasn’t just Hayato and Yugi; Joey Wheeler, Tristan, and Téa would also accompany them.
On one aspect, they happened to have enough time for fun during the holiday, and this time Pegasus took the position of Big Spender, covering all expenses for everyone. After all, for Pegasus, money was truly just a mere number now. His biggest pursuit in his life from now on was simply to make Duel Monsters develop better and better, and to be able to design more interesting cards.
And on the other aspect, perhaps because he had witnessed the souls of the Atlanteans from ten thousand years ago return to their homeland, and the ten thousand year old scenery reappear within the ruin of Atlantis City, Dark Yugi made up his mind to set off to search for his lost memory.
For this, Dark Yugi specifically borrowed the Three Egyptian Gods cards from Hayato’s hand, and went to the Egyptian Artifact Traveling Exhibition Hall to find the tablet that recorded himself from three thousand years ago and the person who looked similar to Kaiba. He used the power of the Three Egyptian Gods.
Before this, Joey Wheeler and the others thought that once Dark Yugi showed the cards, he might have to separate from everyone. Because of this, they said their solemn goodbyes for a long time. Even the two strong boys, Tristan and Joey Wheeler, had teary eyes, not to mention how sad the emotional Téa was at that time.
However, after raising the Three Egyptian Gods cards towards the tablet, what appeared before Dark Yugi’s eyes was not his own memory. Instead, it was a phantom of a tablet. That tablet seemed like it was placed within a palace somewhere, and a human figure was drawn on it, but there were many blanks all over its body.
What Dark Yugi particularly cared about was that the blanks on that tablet, their shapes seemed to coincide coincidentally with several Millennium Items he knew of.
For example, the ring-shaped blank on the human figure’s head could fit the Millennium Necklace, the blank on the forehead could fit the Millennium Eye, the blank on the right hand was the appearance of the Millennium Scepter/Staff, the abdomen was the shape of the Millennium Wheel of Wisdom, and there was a triangular blank at the heart’s position, which seemed like it was prepared for the Millennium Puzzle.
Aside from the Millennium Items corresponding to the two other “scale”-like blanks and one “Ankh” symbol-like blank, which Dark Yugi had no impression of, most of the blanks on the tablet Dark Yugi could find the corresponding Millennium Items from his memory and fill them in.
Although he didn’t know what would happen if he filled in that tablet, since the tablet that recorded the Memory World had given him this guidance, Dark Yugi felt that perhaps he needed to find that tablet and fill in the seven Millennium Items to retrieve his memory.
And coincidentally, Pegasus said he had seen that tablet before and was also going to Egypt to look for it. Although he hadn’t gathered all the Millennium Items yet, Yugi felt that he could go find that tablet first to complete one goal.
“It’s precisely because you guys are about to set off for Egypt that I wanted to tell you about this matter.” Solomon Muto took a deep breath, looked at everyone, and said seriously, “In Egypt, there’s one thing you absolutely must pay attention to.”
“Whatever you do, don’t just find a tour guide randomly on the roadside! You’ll get ripped off terribly!”
“So after all that, that’s all you wanted to say?!”
Memory World Arc, now proudly serialized!
PS: Revisiting the anime, I realized how incredibly handsome Ji-chan was when he was young. When he first appeared, I almost didn’t recognize him.
(End of Chapter)
